Affectability of positive and negative written personal accounts

Expressive composing figure, collateral and negative excise, haughty cogitateing purpose finding and electro arbitrary be active. An individuals conduct of scenes and feelings dis culmination relating to aspects of their look is often utilized d unriv every(prenominal)ed communicatory penning as a therapeutic strategy. This act is more formally recognized as the communicative writing paradigm (Nicholls, 2009), describing the health realises of communicative writing production. Rebuttals against this guess include its lack of a clear translation in regard to the reasons it proves an effective therapy (Sloan & Marx, 2004), though its effectiveness appeases undisputed.Expressive writing in studies can include a variety of deferent yield proposition in analysis of any emotion from traumatic events to Brobdingnagian confirmative becomes. Emotional convention has been shown to effect general satisfaction confirmatively or negatively dependent on the check emot ion to the playing field of concern. Further enhancing this suggestion Is the nonion of strengthened self-efficacy by emotional demeanor (Kirk. Schuster, & Hint, 201 1 Already, Implications of Its intention In positive regard becomes more applicable In applying positivist more generally as a contribute of indite divergence.Writing has proven a powerful tool across studies In both mental and physical responses. An experiment conducted on Swedish athletes fix a positive correlation surrounded by the writing of positive self-talk and response times (?seedeater, Spender, & SDarlene, 2012). An an early(a)(prenominal) more extreme solecism of expressive writing incorporation was calld in a 2012) This study foc apply on the positive outcomes of the experience and was put up to exhi number positive do on popular survivor constraints as fatigue, intrusive thoughts, post-traumatic stress and so on.Yet another study of interest involves the SE of expressive writing, though not with an beholders direction of positive or negative actuate. This study simply move participants to write down their traumatic experience. Outcomes of which include decreased physician visits and use of aspirin everywhere time (Baneberry & Bell, Confronting a traumatic event Toward an understanding, 1986). These studies fabrication among a multitude of others (Kelly, 2012) all of which indicate a significant positive impact of expressive writing on general satisfaction (Baneberry & Chunk, 2007).One product line against this expressive rating paradigm is that the use of create verbally emotions is not unavoidably the promoter of positive simulate. Instead, the act of expressing emotions in any form volition write tension of the event (Baneberry, 1997). Expressive writing whitethorn be said to provide room for structure and organization of an individuals emotions in a way they whitethorn neer throw away thought nearly, or never save wanted to think about(predicate) (Baneberry, 1997). This scripted chronicle allows for weeny emotional repression if the participant involves themselves entirely in the process.This leaves open the argument that distinct harpies may produce distinct results and with a society of subjectivity, this argument remain undisputed. Nonetheless, expressive writing cannot be undermined as a sound means for effective therapy. Interestingly, a study set forth to decipher whether written trauma showed increased positive reckon than vocalism the trauma in a public setting (Fez, Valances, & Gonzalez, 1999). The study found that a written account of the trauma proved more negatively provoking than releaseing in a public setting.Although further research needs to take dictate on this issue, it is hypothesized that written trauma is too zealous, flooding emotions that the participant found more anxiety provoking than in a setting amongst other trauma victims. Linked to the term, as mentioned, be a number of different the ories. As is with the case with many another(prenominal) psychological theories, a singular theory is not applicable. To some, this may prove reason to avoid its use (Kelly, 2012). It may also be argued, however, that subjectivity among individuals necessitates more than a singular theory.Of these theories is the archetype that the act of interacting with an emotional vent in a more analytical sense may provide an outlet (Baneberry, 1997). It is thought that this outlet may reduce a traumatic influence of the event or deepen and remind of a pleasant memory. Furthermore, interacting with the event forces the individual to structure and world an event in a way that they may sire not preceding(prenominal)ly thought about, or have wanted to think about. It is thought that this may bring clarity of the situation, release and perhaps even closure through self-efficacy.These theories are set forth as the immediate cognitive changes through the act of expressive writing. The more lo ng term theories include the release of memories that may have had impact on the working mind. This theory suggests that as expressive writing is further indulged, immediate arousal of the memory diminishes (Baneberry, 1997). This becomes specially essential with traumatic events which tend to lose emotional arousal over a number of expressive writing sessions. With this act of release, a biologic theory arises in that anxiety and other illnesses as a aspect writing is that of a more social front.A study on final solution victims valued that 70% of survivors had not partake ind information socially (Baneberry, 1997). after writing and talking about these experiences with researchers. Many were able to then share them with others, providing further therapy in a social context (Baneberry, 1997). Many studies are devoted to uncovering preparation writing and the theory behind it. So too have studies encapsulated the long-term effect on well-being of its use as a therapy. Fewer st udies examine expression writing in its immediate effects on an individual.This study focus ones on the immediate effects of emotional writing on an individuals affect. With previous studies in mind, it is hypothesized that a positive affect allow be correlated with exposure to positive experience writing whereas a negative affect provide be correlated with exposure to negative experience writing. Method Participants Participants were 173 (129 females) undergraduate students from an Australian tertiary education institution. The mean age of the participants was 30. 19 years (SD ? 9. 17) male mean age was 28. 14 (SD = 7. 2), and female mean age was 30. 89 (SD = 9. 60). Materials. The Ego-Resiliency master (ERR-89 Block & Kramer, 1996). This 14 item measure of trait saliency uses a 4-point Liker home plate, ranging from does not apply at all (1) to applies very strongly (4). The measure is reportedly highly reliable (a = . 76) with example items including l am more curious than most people and l quickly get over and rule from being startled. Resiliency was calculate by summing gain from all 14 items with higher(prenominal) scores indicating great resiliency.The Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale (DADS-21 Loving & Loving, 1995). This 21 item measure of depression, anxiety and stress records responses on a 4-point Liker crustal plate from never (1) to almost always (3). The DADS-21 is reportedly highly reliable (a = . 96). lawsuit items include l find it hard to unwind and l felt up that I wasnt worth much as a person. The worldwide Health Questionnaire (GHZ-12 Goldberg & Williams, 1988). This 12-item measure of general mental and physical health utilizes a 4-point Liker scale from not at all (O) to quite a bit (3).The reported reliability of the GHZ-12 ranges from . 82 to . 86. Example items include whether participant have lost much sleep over worry and been unhappy and depressed. coercive and Negative Affectively Scale (PANS Watson, Clark, & Tell ing, 1998). This 20-item scale was used to assess positive and negative ambient mood. Participants were asked to rate the extent to which they felt the emotions right now on a 5-point Liker scale, ranging from very slightly or not at all (1) to passing (5). Both the positive mood scale (a = 0. 90) and the negative mood scale (a = 0. 4) are considered highly reliable. Example positive mood descriptors included interested, excited, strong, grand and inspired. Example negative mood descriptors included distressed, upset, guilty, irritable and nervous. Positive affect is calculated by summing scores from all 10 positive items, with higher scores indicating greater positive affect. Positive signification finding. A series of questions adapted from those reported by Tugged and Frederickson (2004) were administered in order to assess the tier to which participants found moment in their described event.To prompt meaning finding, participants stainless two open ended the significance of the event? Specific meaning finding questions included To what extent do you feel you might benefit from this situation in the long term? How likely s it that thither is something to learn from this experience? and How easy is it to find meaning in the described event? Ratings for these questions were made on a seven- point scale, ranging from not at all (1) to extremely (7). Meaning finding was calculated by summing scores for these lead questions. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count 2007 ( laic Francis & Baneberry, 1996).All written positive disclosure essays were converted into individual word documents and analyzed through the LAIC program. The LAIC program was used to yield descriptive selective information on the number of costive and negative emotion words, and insight words used in the written disclosure pieces. In addition it was used to take percentages of insight words used in the extended response positive meaning finding questions. The LAIC program has been found to correlate with Judges ratings in the range of . 37 to . 81 (Francis & Baneberry, 1996). Procedure Data were collected from participants in either face-to-face or online first-year classes.Upon commencing the class, participants were introduced to the session as one on emotions. Qualities was the software program used to host the online survey. Participants were asked to pay almost attention to instructions provided during the laddering session. The session commenced with the ERR-89, DADS-21, GHZ, all of which served as misdirection questionnaires, and the PANS. Following completion of these, the experimenter informed participants that they would complete a 15 min writing task and that it was important that they tried to type for the entire 15 minutes.Participants were randomly assigned to the positive, neutral, or negative written disclosure condition. Participants in the positive written disclosure condition achieved the succeeding(a) instructions preserve about the most int ensely positive experience of your life. Write about the experience in as much detail as you can. truly get into it and freely express any and all emotions or thoughts that you have about the experience. As you write, do not worry about punctuation mark or grammar proficient really let go and write as much as you can about the experience.Participants in the negative written disclosure condition were instructed to do the following For the next 1 5 minutes write about the most important personal bother you are currently acing in your life. Write about the experience in as much detail as you can. Really get into it and freely express any and all emotions or thoughts that you have about the experience. As you write, do not worry about punctuation or grammar Just really let go and write as much as you can about the experience. Continue writing until you are instructed to stop by the researcher.Finally, those in the control condition were asked to write about the activities of their da y thus far in the most structured and detailed format practical (for an example see Tugged & Frederickson, 2004). The experimenter stopped participants at the end of the 1 5 minutes and directed them to continue with the rest of the experiment. The remainder of the test consisted of a post-test PANS, positive meaning finding and demographic questions. Once completed, participants were debriefed and provided with experimenter contact enlarge should they require further information regarding the experiment.Results Prior to running the statistical analyses all data were screened for normality and positive written disclosure statements revealed participants chose to write about a wide variety of positive experiences. The five most common positive experiences included parenthood, establishing a significant relationship with a life partner, traveling overseas, career, and academic achievements. The five most common negative experiences included future career prospects, current employme nt, financial concerns, mental health, and relationship issues.Hypothesis 1 stated that writing about an intense positive experience will result in a greater increase in positive affect. To examine whether positive affect increased, change in positive affect scores were calculated by subtracting the pre-test from the cost-test positive PANS score. A one-way NOVA with three levels of the independent variable (positive, neutral, or negative written disclosure task) was performed to test the impact of the written tasks on change in positive affect. Results revealed that thither was a significant difference between the neutral (M = -1. 12, SD = 5. 6), negative (M = -3. 81 , SD = 9. 54), and positive written disclosure conditions (M 3. 14, SD = 7. 34) for change in positive affect scores, F(2, 173) = 12. 14, pHypothesis 2 proposed that writing about an intense positive experience will result in greater meaning finding. A one-way NOVA was calculated to compare meaning finding scores betwe en the three conditions following the written task. Results valued that there was a significant difference between the neutral (M = 14. 60, SD = 4. 20), negative (M = 15. 46, SD = 4. 35), and positive written disclosure conditions (M 19. 24, SD = 2. 65) for meaning finding scores, F(l, 189) = 24. 60, pPost hoc analyses using Bonfire adjustments revealed that the differences between the positive and negative, and the positive and neutral conditions were significant to the . 001 level. Participants who wrote about an intense positive life experience elicited greater positive meaning from the experience, compared to those who wrote about a active experience, or the age events. Discussion This data indicates that writing about positive and negative experiences increases and decreases affect accordingly, in conjunction with neutral conditions.The data also represents a greater meaning finder in participants engaged with positive written expression as opposed to negative and neutral cond itions, with negative written expression producing the pooh-pooh meaning finder of the two. With the hypothesis of the expressive writing paradigm in mind, it may be said that obtained results support this suggestion. In previous mention of the term, the expressive rating paradigm has been supported in many studies over long periods of time and through rather more intense conditions such as the example of breast cancer survivors (Lu, Ghent, Young, Gawk-Singer, & LOL, 2012).Furthermore, previous studies focus greatly on the expression of traumatic instances (Baneberry, 1997) quite the opposite in that negative expressive writing produces a negative affect and lower meaning finder among participants. These results, however, are compared to that of writing positive experiences and so it may be said that a decreased score would be expected. Alternatively, being a cross-sectional design, perhaps more interesting results would be compiled from a series of written expression of the same a ccount in the case of a negative experience.From previous studies, it is implied that regular written expression of a negative experience may produce positive results, contrary to those shown in this study. One of the implications of this study may be related to indulging on a regular basis in written accounts of positive experience to improve positive affect and meaning finding. Future studies, however, would benefit from the analysis of regular positive written expression. As is shown in previous studies with that of traumatic events, increased confrontation through written expression is shown to reduce negative affect.It may be practicable that the opposite effect adhere to regular confrontation of positive experience. peradventure this positive experience would decrease in positivist, or even have a reverse effect over time. The restrictions of this study include, primarily, the tested participants. undergraduate psychology students may not accurately represent the population . Many other studies of the same caliber have an inclination to testing of traumatic situations among a particular sub-group. Interesting would be the results obtained from a randomly selected participant group, and measuring stick them both for instant results and results over a number of tests.A further limitation may be described in the means in which data was collected. Lending to an intrusive subject matter, a face-to-face collection in class may not yield the greatest results. Anonymity to observer aside, students sitting within close proximity to another student may feel threatened by invasion of privacy and not reveal inner most feelings, effecting results. Furthermore, participation in the study was of a required status. This may have affected the amount of effort students put into preaching as opposed perhaps to an individual actively seeking interference or even involvement in a study.To prevent viable confounds in the future, ideally, participants would be of a rand om selection of willing volunteers. If undoable however, it may prove advantages to separate students among the class too radius in which their test cannot be overlooked. Despite these limitations, this study shows promising results by suggestion that positive expression writing increases positive affect and greater meaning finding. These results may prove useful in a variety of situations and therapies though further testing should be undergone to discover the extent of its effect.